Andrea Gabrieli
MISSA PATER
PECCAVI
motets & instrumental music
HIS MAJESTYS
CONSORT OF VOICES
HIS MAJESTYS SAGBUTTS
AND CORNETTS
TIMOTHY ROBERTS
UST AS, to most people, the name Bach on its own will
normally conjure up Johann Sebastian, so Gabrieli
normally refers to the great Giovanni, the composer of
sumptuous and expressive church music whose fervour and
directness give it a universality far beyond the particular
Catholic liturgy that brought it into being. And, like Bach, the
strength of Giovannis musical personality has tended to cast
the work of his predecessors into deeper shadow; with our
Darwinian attitudes to music history, it is all too easy to see
earlier Venetian composers like Willaert, Rore, and Gabrielis
own uncle, Andrea, as merely paving the way for the great
man. Particularly in the case of Andrea, his very closeness to
Giovanni has, it seems, obscured the fact that he is himself
one of the greatest and most approachable composers of the
High Renaissance. Late in his life Andrea composed a Mass
for four choirs, but most of his music requires only relatively
modest forces; yet it has all the colour, imagination and
emotional immediacy that we associate with the best Venetian
art of the sixteenth century.
At a time when Italian music was dominated by Flemish
composers, Andrea Gabrieli was a native Venetian, born
around 1510, probably in Cannareggio in a northern part of the
floating city, where he became organist of the Church of San
Geremia. He may have sung at the basilica of St Marks as
early as 1536, but was unsuccessful when he applied for the
post of second organist there in 1557; the successful applicant
was Claudio Merulo, whom Girolamo Diruta claimed was the
finest player in Italy. Andrea eventually succeed Merulo when
the latter became first organist in 1566, and finally became
first organist in 1584. A year later his nephew Giovanni joined
him as second organist.
Neither of the Gabrielis ever became maestro di cappella,
but both wrote large amounts of church music for St Marks
and other Venetian musical establishments. Andrea was also a
successful composer of madrigals and festive secular music.
He seems to have travelled little outside Venice, but an
important journey, in the company of his nephew, was to
make the parts sing all together, using such slow notes as the
breve, semibreve, and minim, with devout consonances and with
harmonious intervals, upon the words Iesu Christe. This is done
because of the reverence and decorum due to their meanings.
The same is usually observed upon the words Et incarnatus est
to Crucifixus. To use imitations and lively progressions here,
with other graces, is a very great error and a sign of great
ignorance.
The composer is at liberty to write the Christe, the
Crucifixus, the Pleni sunt caeli, the Benedictus, and the second
Agnus Dei for fewer voices than are used in the work as a
whole
Gabrieli does not in fact reduce the number of parts for the
Christe or Pleni sunt caeli, but he does use smaller contrasted groupings of three or four voices for certain phrases,
sowing the seeds, as it were, for the tonal contrasts and
conversational responses that would later lead to the Venetian
polychoral style.
Venetian title pages of this period frequently refer to mixed
vocal and instrumental scorings, as do contemporary descriptions and depictions of actual performances. But composers
rarely specified which parts should be sung and which played
(all were customarily texted, even when intended for instruments); this was to some extent a matter of the performers
choice, and only later did Giovanni Gabrieli and others make
the conventions explicit in certain works. Our approach to the
Mass in this recording is not intended as a reconstruction of
any actual performance, and is inevitably conjectural. The full
ensemble consists of six solo voices doubled by six instruments, with the organ (as was customary, if it was playing at
all) also doubling all the parts. The scoring is reduced to voices
and organ for the Qui tollis and the trio settings of the
Crucifixus and Et resurrexit; elsewherein the Christe,
the Benedictus and the first Agnus Deiwe mix voices and
instruments in various ways. The aim is a variety that does not
distract from the musics essential simplicity, and of course
the result is only one of many possibilities.
3
canzona-like pieces with a sectionalized quilt-like construction similar to contemporary madrigals. The one in the sixth
tone is dark-hued, with a low-lying top part, while that in the
triumphant twelfth mode is bright, and has two contrasting
triple-time sections. Though only for a single choir, once
again the music of Giovanni Gabrieli seems but a simple step
away.
Only one larger-scale Ricercar by Andrea Gabrieli survives,
an eight-part piece that, similarly, appeared in print only
after the composers death. It looks dense on paper, but in
performance reveals itself as a gorgeous piece of Venetian
colouristic writing in which the contrapuntal skill is almost
submerged by the richness of the instrumental sonority. For the
recording we arranged ourselves in a quasi-random order that
was nevertheless designed to reveal a glorious moment when
the instruments, for three bars only, divide into two groups
of fourgiving birth to the polychoral canzona! This is an
unusual piece with few successors, the most notable of which
are two of the ten-part pieces in Giovannis 1597 collection
(Hyperion CDA66908 tracks 3 and 7).
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4
4 Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.
6 Gloria in excelsis Deo
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus te. Benedicimus te.
Adoramus te. Glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, rex caelestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens,
Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe,
Domine Deus, agnus Dei, Filius Patris,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis;
qui tollis peccata mundi,
suscipe deprecationem nostram;
qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus sanctus. Tu solus Dominus.
Tu solus altissimus, Iesu Christe.
Cum Sancto Spiritu, in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.
8 Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem,
factorem caeli et terrae,
visibilium omnium, et invisibilium.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum,
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ANDREA GABRIELI
I LE NOM DE BACH est habituellement associ Johann
Sebastian, celui de Gabrieli lest au grand Giovanni,
compositeur dune musique dglise somptueuse et
expressive, que son caractre fervent et direct rend
universelle, dpassant de beaucoup la liturgie catholique pour
laquelle elle fut cre. Comme Bach aussi, la puissance de la
personnalit musicale de Giovanni tendit jeter dans lombre
luvre de ses prdecesseurs ; notre approche darwinienne de
lhistoire de la musique nous fait trop aisment apprhender
les compositeurs vnitiens antrieurs, tels Willaert, Rore et
Andrea Gabrieli (loncle de Giovanni), comme de simples
paveurs de voie . Pour Andrea, notamment, il semble que
ses liens trs troits avec Giovanni aient oblitr son propre
statut de compositeur, parmi les plus grands et les plus
abordables de la Haute Renaissance. Vers la fin de sa vie,
Andrea composa une messe pour quatre churs, mais
lessentiel de sa musique requiert des forces relativement
modestesce qui ne lempche pas de receler toute la
couleur, toute limagination et toute limmdiatet motionnelle
que nous associons au meilleur art vnitien du XVIe sicle.
En un temps o la musique italienne tait domine par les
compositeurs flamands, Andrea Gabrieli tait un Vnitien de
souche, n vers 1510, probablement Cannareggio, dans un
quartier septentrional de la cit flottante , o il devint
organiste de lglise de San Geremia. Bien quayant pu chanter
Saint-Marc ds 1536, il se vit refuser le poste de second
organiste de cette basilique en 1557on lui prfra Claudio
Merulo, le meilleur instrumentiste dItalie, en croire Girolamo
Diruta. Andrea succda finalement Merulo, lorsque ce dernier devint premier organiste, en 1566, avant de finir lui-mme
premier organiste, en 1584. En 1585, son neveu Giovanni le
rejoignit en qualit de second organiste.
Aucun des Gabrieli ne devint jamais maestro di cappella,
mais tous deux crivirent normment de musique dglise
pour Saint-Marc, mais aussi pour dautres tablissements
musicaux vnitiens. Andrea composa galement des
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9
ANDREA GABRIELI
ENAU WIE BEI DEN MEISTEN Leuten der Name Bach
fr sich genommen die Assoziation mit Johann Sebastian
auslst, bezieht sich Gabrieli normalerweise auf den
groen Giovanni, den Komponisten prchtiger und ausdrucksvoller Kirchenmusik, deren Inbrunst und Direktheit ihre
Verbreitung weit ber die spezifische katholische Liturgie
hinaus gewhrleisten, fr die sie entstanden ist. Und wie
bei Bach hat Giovannis berwltigende musikalische Persnlichkeit das Schaffen seiner Vorgnger oft eher in den
Schatten gestellt. Bei unserer darwinistischen Einstellung zur
Musikgeschichte ist es allzu leicht, ltere venezianische
Komponisten wie Willaert, Rore und Gabrielis Onkel Andrea
lediglich als Wegbereiter des groen Mannes anzusehen.
Insbesondere bei Andrea hat seine Nhe zu Giovanni
anscheinend die Tatsache verschleiert, da er selbst einer der
bedeutendsten, am leichtesten zugnglichen Komponisten der
Hochrenaissance ist. Gegen Ende seines Lebens hat Andrea
eine Messe fr vier Chre komponiert, doch ist fr seine Musik
ansonsten meist nur eine relativ kleine Besetzung ntig; und
dennoch besitzt sie das Kolorit, den Einfallsreichtum und die
emotionale Direktheit, die wir mit den Glanzleistungen
venezianischer Kunst des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts verbinden.
Zu einer Zeit, als die italienische Musik von flmischen
Komponisten dominiert wurde, wurde Andrea Gabrieli um 1510
wahrscheinlich in Cannareggio im Norden von Venedig
geboren, wo er Organist der Kirche San Geremia wurde.
Mglicherweise hat er bereits 1536 an der Basilika von San
Marco gesungen, doch war ihm, als er sich dort 1557 um das
Amt des Zweiten Organisten bewarb, kein Erfolg beschieden.
Der erfolgreiche Bewerber war Claudio Merulo, von dem
Girolamo Diruta behauptet hat, er sei der beste Interpret
Italiens gewesen. Andrea trat die Nachfolge Merulos an, als
dieser 1566 Erster Organist wurde, und brachte es schlielich
1584 zum Ersten Organisten. Ein Jahr spter kam sein Neffe
Giovanni als Zweiter Organist dazu.
10
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13
Sources
1 7 bn Madrigali e ricercari (Venice, 1589); 2 Psalmi Davidici, qui poenitentiales nuncupantur (Venice, 1583)
3 Canzoni alla francese per sonar sopra instromenti da tasti, ii (Venice, 1605)
4 6 8 bl bm bo Primus liber missarum (Venice, 1572); 5 Intonationi dorgano, i (Venice, 1593)
9 B Schmidt the younger, Tabulatur-Buch (Strasburg, 1607)
bp Il terzo libro de ricercari (Venice, 1596); bq Sacrae cantiones (Venice, 1565)
br A & G Gabrieli: Concerti contenenti musica di chiesa, madrigali, & altro (Venice, 1587)
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CDH55265
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